Fr. George Skrekas (+1947), Priest and Martyr

Source: https://o-d-o-c.blogspot.com/2025/04/fr-george-skrekas-1947-priest-and-martyr.html

Father George Skrekas was born in 1910 in Megarchi (village in central Greece) to Greek Orthodox parents. He married a pious girl, Euthymia Douma. They had six boys. They were: John, Stephen, Basil, Andrew, Achilles and George the junior (baptized after his father's death). 

Father George in 1938 he was ordained a Greek Orthodox Priest and with the goodness of his soul and his charitable deeds, he was loved by the Christian community of the entire region. He was the personification of kindness and justice. With his tireless activity, the sweetness of his words, his philanthropic deeds, his wise advice, he beautified the ugliness of life, sweetening the bitterness of his fellow human beings and diminishing their pain. The German occupation in Greece had begun at that time (1941-1945) and immediately after that the Communist rebellion (1946-1949).

The communist gangs, known antichrists, atheistic materialists, did not want inspired clergymen close to the people, because they were the great obstacles to their dark pursuits. In order to completely neutralize Papa-Skrekas' reaction, they acted in insidious way as follows:

Late at night, on March 27, 1947, when the whole village was asleep and Father George was resting, about fifty armed Communists broke into his house and arrested him. Dragged him into the yard of his house and, beating him mercilessly, immobilized him. They robbed everything in the house and took him away in chains. His wife was not spared from the beating either, while the six minor children (from 10 years to 6 months) were crying in terror.

Father George was transferred to a nearby village and locked in a barn. The village priest, as soon as he was informed of the terrible event, courageously ran to the prisoner. Father Skrekas, with obvious emotion and tears in his eyes, embraced his colleague, telling him at the moment of their separation: “God knows what will become of me. If the Lord calls me to him through martyrdom, blessed be His name. May His will be done”!

The communist gang with their prisoner, after an exhausting march of hours through the mountains, they arrived at village Neraidochori. They threw the almost half-dead priest Skrekas into a dark dungeon. 

They tortured him for hours every day until Holy Thursday.

Female gang members said to him “why don’t you pray to Jesus Christ to come and save you?”, and the executioners more bluntly “You who believe in Christ, we will crucify you like Him on the same day”.

On Holy Friday, April 11, 1947, the chief gang member of the area, "Captain Farmakis", in the world Christos Tziatzias, whom the father George had often and willingly helped financially in the past, entered the dungeon, brutally and violently grabbed him and dragged him out.

After a mock trial, the priest was sentenced to death by crucifixion. He was immediately crucified on a cross-shaped fir tree, they broke his bones, cut him with tin cans, his eyes were gouged out, he was speared in his side and in the end, they shot him in the head...